Lack of sleep significantly impacts the brain’s response to an attention task, and circadian rhythms play a role, according to functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 33 healthy adults that was published in Science. Study participants stayed awake for 42 hours and periodically performed a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT)—a visual reaction time task designed to measure attention—and an auditory n-back task. Overall, PVT performance was stable during the first day, but decreased significantly after sleep deprivation. For more on the study, see this article from Family Practice News : http://www.familypracticenews.com/specialty-focus/pulmonary-sleep-medicine/single-article-page/mri-measurements-reveal-effects-of-sleep-deprivation/e4929289d9671662155a4344b4429149.html.
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MRI measurements reveal effects of sleep deprivation
